Saint Polycarp of Smyrna

Saint Polycarp was bishop of Smyrna, today’s Izmir in Turkey, and a martyr of the 2nd century. The Church venerates him as a disciple of Saint John the Apostle and the last witness of the apostolic age. He is counted among the Apostolic Fathers. His liturgical memorial falls on February 23.

Neither the year nor the place of his birth is known. Most of what we know comes from Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, who listened to him in Smyrna as a young man. According to Irenaeus, Polycarp was instructed by the Apostles, spoke with many who had seen the Lord, and was appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna by the Apostles themselves. Irenaeus remembered how Polycarp used to tell of his meetings with John.

At the beginning of the 2nd century Saint Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, stopped in Smyrna while being led under guard to Rome, where he was to suffer martyrdom. He wrote four letters there, and later, from Troas, sent a separate letter to Polycarp. When the Christians of Philippi asked for Ignatius’s writings, Polycarp sent them together with a letter of his own. This Letter to the Philippians survives to this day.

In old age Polycarp traveled to Rome, to Pope Anicetus. They discussed the day for keeping Easter: the Churches of Asia celebrated it on the 14th day of the month of Nisan, Rome on the Sunday that followed. Neither convinced the other, yet they parted in peace, and as a mark of honor Anicetus entrusted the celebration of the Eucharist to his guest.

His death is described in a letter that the Church in Smyrna sent to the Church in Philomelium. When persecution broke out in the city, the faithful persuaded the bishop to take refuge in a house in the country. A servant gave him away under torture. Polycarp had a meal served to those who came for him and asked for an hour to pray. Then he was led to the stadium.

The proconsul Statius Quadratus urged him, out of regard for his age, to deny Christ. Polycarp answered: “Eighty-six years I have served him, and he has never done me wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” Condemned to the stake, he asked not to be nailed to it, and he thanked God for numbering him among the martyrs and giving him a share in the chalice of Christ. According to the letter the flames did not consume him, and he died from the thrust of a dagger. The body was burned, and the Christians gathered the bones, more precious to them than jewels, and resolved to keep the day of his martyrdom every year.

The letter gives the day, February 23, but the year remains disputed. Many scholars point to 155 or 156. The Roman Martyrology places this death in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and the Italian edition of the Roman Missal gives the year 167. Polycarp has been venerated as a saint since antiquity, without a formal canonization. The account of his passion is among the oldest surviving records of a martyrdom; the same Missal calls it the earliest witness to the veneration of martyrs. Benedict XVI wrote that the whole drama is told as a liturgy in which the martyr himself becomes Eucharist.